Michelle Alexander on the "Criminal Injustice System"

Alexander says California has led the way in building a system that turns back the clock on racial progress in the United States. She says we must insist on a moral revolution that will undo the present system of mass incarceration.

She spoke on May 10th at Dominguez Hills, California. This lecture was recorded and produced by Global Voices for Justice.

Michelle Alexander is a professor at Ohio State University. She holds a joint appointment with the Moritz College of Law and the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity. Prior to joining the OSU faculty, she was a member of the Stanford Law School faculty, where she served as Director of the Civil Rights Clinic.

Current U.S. space technology strategy and military expansion in the Asia-Pacific region

Bruce Gagnon, Coordinator of the Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space spoke in Portland on April 20th on current U.S. space technology strategy, military expansion in the Asia-Pacific region, the effects of our war economy on climate change and ending the corporate domination of congress

Between 1983–1998 Bruce was the State Coordinator of the Florida Coalition for Peace & Justice and has worked on space issues for 29 years. In 1987 he organized the largest peace protest in Florida history when over 5,000 people marched on Cape Canaveral in opposition to the first flight test of the Trident II nuclear missile. He was the organizer of the Cancel Cassini Campaign (launched 72 pounds of plutonium into space in 1997).

Host Michelle Schroeder Fletcher interviews Michael Sandel, author of "What Money Can't Buy: The Moral Limits of Markets." They'll talk about the difficult arguments missing from our public debates about the value being assigned by markets to nonmarket norms. What is the proper role of markets in a democratic society, and how can we protect the moral and civic goods that markets don't honor and that money can't buy?

Michael Sandel is a political philosopher and a professor at Harvard University. He is best known for the Harvard course 'Justice' which is available to view online, and for his critique of Rawls' A Theory of Justice in his Liberalism and the Limits of Justice (1982).

Host Jay Thiemeyer speaks with local activist Kristian Williams about his new short book Hurt, published by Microcosm Publishing. a not-for-profit, collectively-run publisher and distributor of books and zines which is now based in Leavenworth, KS and Portland, OR.

Host Per Fagereng speaks with David Barsamian, the award-winning founder and director of Alternative Radio. He is the author of numerous books with Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, Eqbal Ahmad, Tariq Ali, Arundhati Roy and Edward Said. His latest book is Occupy the Economy: Challenging Capitalism, co-authoed with prominent economist Richard Wolff.

David will talk about "Occupy Capitalism" and the root causes of the current economic crisis, the most severe since the Great Depression.

Host Per Fagereng speaks with Elaine Hagopian about "The Syrian Revolution Enigma."

Elaine Hagopian is a Syrian-American sociologist, a professor emeritus of sociology at Simmons College in Boston and political interviewer for Arabic Hour TV. She said recently: "The so-called Syrian revolution is an enigma. It has split the left between those who support the so-called opposition with all its disparate parts to those who see the revolution as a plot to destroy the Syrian regime’s alliance with Iran and Hezbollah which stands in the face of Western and local affiliate countries’ interests.

Professor Ilan Pappe talks about the Israel's government intention--including socialists and left-- to get rid of the Palestinian people from occupied territory ever since early 1960's and up to right. "The False Paradigm of Parity and Partition: Revisiting 1967" deals with the lies that there was a reconciling strategy or peace plan at the behest of Israelis' governing to solve the conflict with Palestinians.

Audio

Host Per Fagereng interviews Ellen Hodgson Brown, author of "The Web of Debt: The Shocking Truth about Our Money System and How We Can Break Free." Also, Kathleen Stephenson speaks with Stephen Zarlenga of the American Monetary Institute, author of "The Lost Science of Money." Zarlenga is speaking in Portland at the First Unitarian Church on Monday, May 11th, at 7PM. The Church is at 1011 SW 12th Ave.

Kathe Kollwitz of the Guerilla Girls was in town to lecture for Bitch Magazine's "Feminist Perspectives in Pop Culture" lecture series. Before her lecture is at PSU's Smith Memorial on the 28th of April she spoke by phone with Eva Lake. The Guerilla Girls are a group of women artists who work anonymously within that group, making political art about gender and color bias in the art world.

Host Per Fagereng speaks with environmental writer Chip Ward who says, "'Too big to fail.' It's been the mantra of our economic meltdown. Although meant to emphasize the overwhelming importance of this bank or that corporation, the phrase also unwittingly expresses a shared delusion that may be at the root of our current crises -- both economic and ecological. In nature, nothing is too big to fail. In fact, big is bound to fail. To understand why that's so means stepping away from a prevailing set of beliefs that holds us in its sway, especially the deep conviction that we operate apart from nature's limits and rules."

On March 1st 2009 Portland Brit Tzedek V’Shalom, Congregation Shir Tikvah and the Bridgeport UCC co-sponsored an event, The Politics of Water in the Middle East & the Developing World.

Speaking that afternoon were Congressman Earl Blumenauer, Dr. Jeff Albert, and Mousa Diabat. The topics discussed included water scarcity in the third world, and the effect of water scarcity on the Arab-Israeli peace.

Due to time limitations for today’s broadcast we will only air today the comments by Congressman Blumenauer on water issues globally, and two of the questions for the panel from the audience.

Dr. Albert was interviewed on the KBOO radio show Radiozine and if you would like to hear comments about water scarcity in the Middle East, we ask that you search for the name Jeff Albert on the KBOO website and find the audio file, node 12532.

Host Marianne Barisonek speaks with Chris Martenson, who offers a free crash course on "how we got into this economic crisis." Chris Martenson is an author; obsessive financial observer; trained as a scientist; experienced in business; has made profound changes in his lifestyle because of what he sees coming.

Host Linda Olson-Osterlund interviews Ronault L.S. Catalani, author, poet immigrant rights attorney and the the City of Portland's Immigrant & Refugee Affairs Coordinator. In his evocative new book Catalani also known as "Polo" writes a series of essays from familiar cafes. Each one gives a new and startlingly intimate experience of one mans life as an immigrant. The interview springboards from the book to the political forces underpinning his experience of "ethnic Cleansing" to the effects of those forces in the life of refugees today. The wide ranging discussion touched on the value of war crimes tribunals to the camaraderie immigrants from different cultures find in each others company.

Host Per Fagereng speaks with Kevin Phillips about his updated edition of "Bad Money: Reckless Finance, Failed Politics and the Global Crisis of American Capitalism. Kevin Phillips has been a political and economic commentator for more than three decades. A former White House strategist, he is a regular contributor to the Los Angeles Times and NPR and writes for Harper’s and Time. His books include New York Times bestsellers The Politics of Rich and Poor and Wealth and Democracy.

During the Bush administration the Envronmental Protection Agency mandated that Portland install a costly filtration system to "protect" us from Cryptosporidium which has never been a problem with our Bull Run water. The City argued in court against the EPA in 2007, and lost. Host Stephanie Potter speaks with Regna Meritt of Oregon Wild and Floy Jones of Friends of the Reservoirs about what we can still do to keep the Bull Run "elegant, endlessly sustainable, and as yet, not corporatized." Regna & Floy will speak with Commissioner Randy Leonard this Saturday, April 11, from 10 am to noon at the Glencoe Elementary School Cafeteria at 825 SE 51st Ave about this issue. Congressional staff have been invited and the public is encouraged to participate.

Comments

Please ask Mr. Naito if his love of democracy extends to his business. Would he be willing to turn his development firm into a employee run cooperative corporation, giving ownership and organizational rights to employees. Mr. Naito's concern for democracy probably ends at doors to his corporation. Mr. Naito looks at this battle to develop the Hood River riverfront property as a public realtions battle. He will promise the community jobs and the city council financial support, and the council will eye the property tax revenue as a benefit to the community. If he is successful, once again we will be selling our responsibility to the land and the river for a short term gain. Mr. Naito cares little for the community, but operates on greed. If the environmental laws and regulations were not in place he would not be concerned at all with the impact of his development on the river, the wild life, and the ability of people to enjoy what nature have given us for free.

Bravo for having this debate, though. And controlling the civility of the debate.